


Our Lady of Dark Times

by princess_charles



Category: Mortal Engines Series - Philip Reeve
Genre: Gen, Religion, Storytelling, i think that's the most accurate summary, probably some self insert rubbish tbh, this is titled "why in the shit did i write this" in my gdocs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-05
Updated: 2016-06-05
Packaged: 2018-07-12 09:12:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7096216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/princess_charles/pseuds/princess_charles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shrike heard a story once, long ago, and he's never quite forgotten it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Our Lady of Dark Times

Star-sprinkled darkness, wind booming on his metal skullpiece. Shrike stood by the rest of the Lazarus Brigade, away from the campfire of the once-born officers, and heard without listening their boasts and tales. It had been a hard day, danger warnings screaming behind his eyes as the Tezla guns of the enemy made blue threads of lightning dance around him. The once-born needed time to relax, an alien concept to Shrike, who required a few hours of sentient standby for self-repair every day or so.

But once-born had strange impulses that couldn’t be controlled or even understood, and so the firelight rippled across dirt- and blood-stained faces as the stories were told.

“... an’ then I ses to ‘er, wouldja believe it, I ses to ‘er “Yeah, same ta you y’ ole pissbucket,” an’ legs it over t’fence!” Gales of laughter followed this, ringing out through the night, and gradually subsided. Silence prowled among the men, punctured only by the sharp prickling sound of the fire. The shadows seemed deeper. 

The once-born called Andringa leant back against his log and sighed. “It’s nights like this you see the Lady, you know.”

Someone said, “The who?”

There were a few sniggers, and Shrike saw Andringa’s eyes glint in the firelight. “You mean to say you’ve never heard of the Lady, Chusserby?” he said to the once-born who had spoken. “Your mother never told you of Her?” The capital H was as crisp and clear as if it had been written. This Lady was obviously of significance to the once-born, Shrike thought, and it would be prudent to listen now.

Chusserby mumbled something about an orphanage, but Andringa shook his head. “No matter. We can tell you now.

“The Lady - Our Lady of Dark Times - is said to be a goddess from the time before the Downsizing. She is patroness of lost things: battles, possessions, souls. She is a scavenger, and She wanders as She will, companionless. The Lady appears on nights like this, and on battlefields when the battle is done. She has never been seen twice by one man, and never with the same face, but we know it is Her.”

“How do you know?” piped up Chusserby.

Andringa held up a hand. “Just wait. That will come soon. Would you like to know what the Lady looks like? Yes?”

“But, Captain, sir,” said Chusserby, “I thought she never had the same -”

“Chusserby. Unless you would like to be on Jaeger-maintenance duty -” ah, so that explained the once-born who checked Shrike and the rest of the brigade for damage every day “- for the next week, you will stop talking and just listen.” Chusserby’s face burned with shame, and he sat back, shoulders hunched.

“Now, where was I? Yes, how She looks.

“No matter what face, or what the colour of her skin, the Lady is always tall and lean - a girl of no more than twenty years, sometimes as young as a child - and she is always wearing the same thing. She wears black boots with black laces, worn and faded, that have walked through more than they were made to. Not boots like ours, but dainty ladies’ boots like they wear in Paris, falling apart at the seams.

She wears knee-britches of some dark blue cloth than cannot be made now, but which they say was common before the Downsizing. In the winter, they are long trousers of the same cloth, tucked into Her boots.

On Her left wrist She wears four string bracelets, one for every member of the family that She lost in the Downsizing. Some say that one of those is pure, glowing white, and that that bracelet is for Her lost self.

She wears a man’s checkered red shirt over a short black tunic like those the Ancients wore, a tea-shirt. Both have seen much better days, ripped and faded.

She doesn’t have long hair like a woman should, but keeps it short. Not so short that her scalp will be burnt by the sun, but not so long that it falls into Her face.

All of this is unremarkable. Not seen since the Ancients’ time, sure, but nothing worth a second glance. What marks Her out as the Lady is Her eyes. They are completely black, not just the coloured part, but black over the whole eye. Black like night, like ink, like the Downsizing. They say that those eyes can see through a man’s face and straight into his soul.   
“And so, my friends, that is Our Lady of Dark Times. Never seen twice by one man or in one skin.”

Andringa took a long pull from the silvered flask at his belt, obviously exhausted by all this talking. Uneasy silence reigned, and Shrike could see that the once-born Chusserby’s eyes were wide with fear and wonder. He would not sleep tonight, Shrike knew, and would be looking over his shoulder, checking for a tall young woman with ink-black eyes, for the next week. If Stalkers knew what exasperation was, Shrike would have felt exasperated, at the once-born and their foolish love and fear of all that was not-quite-human.

*

The story that Captain Andringa had told about the Lady stayed with Shrike for many, many years. He saw Andringa and young Chusserby and the man with the story about the washerwoman and all the rest of them fall and die and be resurrected, fighting once-borns’ wars even in death. He ran from the Battle of Three Dry Ships and carved a new life, if waht Shrike had could be called life, for himself. He killed people and served them and, on occasion, he even saved them. And all this time, without really knowing it at all, he looked for a girl with short hair and cloth bracelets and eyes like a starless night. He looked for the Lady, and he found Hester instead.

*

And on the night of his second death, in the cold mud of the Black Island with Hester kneeling at his side, Shrike looked past her -

\- and into the void-black eyes of a girl who looked not unlike Hester, actually, in boots and blue britches and red shirt, with a terrible, beautiful smile on her face -

\- and as darkness claimed him and the name Kit Solent rang clear as a bell through his circuitry, through the part of him older and more desperately human than his circuitry, Shrike knew that the Lady had, after a thousand years, found this lost soul at last.

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this a year or two ago and found it today in the depths of my google docs while procrastinating. don't ask if there's any point to it, i won't be able to answer because i legitimately have no idea why i wrote this


End file.
